2. Chapter 2 - Matt #2
The corridor eventually opened into a sprawling operations room alive with the glow of tactical displays and wall-sized digital maps that cast shifting light across steel floors and reinforced concrete walls.
Rows of workstations stretched across the space while personnel moved between them with quiet efficiency, their low clipped conversations blending with the hum of electronics and the occasional burst of static from distant radios.
The room felt more military than anything else Matt had seen underground so far, except no Army operations center had ever carried the constant scent of predators packed together beneath layers of recycled air and industrial cleaner.
Several heads turned when Matt entered the room, and while nobody looked openly hostile, he could still feel the careful evaluation following him as personnel assessed the bitten hyena shifter walking through their operations floor.
Matt ignored the scrutiny the same way he had ignored inexperienced officers trying to size him up after promotions while Keene continued across the room toward a glass-walled conference room overlooking the rest of the facility.
Matt glanced toward him. “This yours?”
“No.”
“See? That almost sounded conversational.”
Keene opened the door. “Don’t get used to it.”
Matt stepped inside a conference room that felt cold in the deliberate way military briefing rooms often did, stripped down to a steel conference table, wall-mounted digital displays, and low lighting that only emphasized how far underground they really were.
Three people already occupied the room, and Matt’s attention settled on the woman seated near the far end of the table with silver hair braided tightly over one shoulder and sharp amber eyes focused on the tablet in front of her.
He recognized wolf instantly, but the instinctive response beneath his skin went deeper than species alone, because authority rolled off her in steady controlled waves that made the hyena pay attention.
The second man looked human until he glanced up and Matt caught sight of eyes that were entirely black in a way that felt permanent rather than concealed. The hyena noticed.
The third man lounged comfortably in his chair with the relaxed confidence of someone who had long since stopped needing to prove how dangerous he was. A pale scar cut through one eyebrow, and beneath the expensive cologne, Matt caught a deep predatory scent that the hyena identified as wolf.
Nobody stood when Matt entered the room, though years of military conditioning made him register the lack of acknowledgment.
Keene closed the door behind them. “Reynolds has arrived.”
Matt felt the difference more sharply now each time he heard the name instead of Matt.
A moment later, the silver-haired woman looked up from her tablet. “Matthew Reynolds.”
The use of his full name caught him off guard enough that he blinked surprised she had picked up on the distinction so quickly.
“Uh,” Matt said intelligently. “Yeah. That’s me.”
Something dangerously close to amusement flickered across her expression before disappearing again. “Sit down, Mr. Reynolds.”
Matt grimaced internally because being called Mr. Reynolds was somehow even worse, then dropped into the nearest chair and set his duffel beside his feet while silence stretched across the room.
The wolf shifter studied him openly, while the black-eyed man watched with a fixed intensity that would have been far less unsettling if he had blinked more than once.
Matt sighed. “I’m starting to feel like I’m either being recruited or sacrificed.”
“Potentially both,” the broad-shouldered man said from his chair.
Matt turned toward him slowly. The man’s expression never changed.
Matt glanced between him and the silver-haired woman before sighing. “Well...this place is making a memorable first impression.”
The faintest twitch touched the corner of the silver-haired woman’s mouth.
“Good. You’re paying attention. Overconfidence gets people killed here.”
Matt leaned back in his chair. “You people have a deeply concerning definition of reassurance.”
Keene moved toward the far wall and crossed his arms while the woman tapped her tablet once before lifting her gaze to Matt. “I’m Commander Vale.”
Her authority felt nothing like Mac’s. There was nothing instinctively protective about it. Mac led like people belonged to him. Vale led like everyone belonged to the mission.
“This,” Vale continued, gesturing toward the others, “is Dr. Soren and Agent Baptiste.”
Soren acknowledged him with a small nod while Baptiste barely lifted two fingers from the armrest in greeting. He looked entirely too relaxed for someone that dangerous, and Matt glanced between them with growing concern.
“Please tell me at least one of you is secretly normal.”
“No,” Vale, Soren, and Baptiste answered.
Matt rubbed a hand over his face. “Fantastic.”
Commander Vale ignored him entirely. “You’ve reviewed the operational overview provided to you?”
“Depends how generously we’re defining provided.”
“The version you signed for.”
“Then yes.”
“And you still chose to come.”
Matt shrugged lightly, though the question landed heavier than he wanted to admit. “Somebody has to handle the ugly jobs.”
Baptiste spoke again. “That answer usually comes from people trying to prove something.”
Matt’s attention shifted toward him. “And what answer were you hoping for?”
“The honest one.”
Matt was beginning to think Valker treated silence like an interrogation tactic. “Honestly? I got turned into something I never asked to become, and Valker looked like the first place that might actually understand what the hell to do with that.”
Nobody interrupted him, which somehow made continuing even harder. “So either this works,” he finished, “or I made a spectacularly bad career decision.”
A faint twitch pulled at the corner of Baptiste’s mouth while Commander Vale studied him for another long moment before nodding once.
“That answer,” she said calmly, “was considerably better.”
Matt glanced toward Keene. “Do all of you interrogate people recreationally?”
“Yes,” Keene answered.
Matt sighed. “I was starting to think speaking in riddles was a hiring requirement.”
Baptiste laughed. “You’ll fit in eventually.”
The humor died as Vale stepped to the front of the room.
“Listen up.”
She activated the wall display behind her, and ancient stone corridors filled the screen beneath the cold glow of the monitors.
Collapsed archways leaned at dangerous angles, and religious carvings worn nearly smooth with age stretched across walls that disappeared into descending darkness far below the surface.
The deeper sections looked less like ruins and more like something the earth had deliberately tried to bury.
The hyena went unnaturally still.
Vale’s voice lost what little warmth it had carried.
“Welcome to your first assignment, Mr. Reynolds.”